Only Me
by misanthropic angel
Summary: Cloud tells the story of Zack's death. Old fic that I am re-uploading.


**Only Me**

I was nobody. I was nobody trying to become somebody. He was somebody.

I had been nobody for a long time. I should have become accustomed to it. Instead I had decided that I had to prove myself. Why? To whom? To Tifa and to everyone who had ever made me feel like I wasn't good enough. Of course, that was it.

I was there for a long time. Every day wore me down a little more, until I forgot how to smile, until I wasn't even sure I had ever known how to smile. I wanted to prove myself but the only thing I was proving was that they had all been right: I wasn't good enough. Good enough for whom? For them? Or for myself? Questions that should have been asked but never were. I just pushed on, silencing my mind and all its questions, telling myself it didn't matter.

The first time I met him I was awed. A smile seemed to be on his face far too often, but then it never looked out of place. Even in the most tragic situations there would be a small smile on his face, not because he was hiding beneath a falsely cheerful demeanour, but because his hopeful mind always searched the depths of misfortune until it found something to smile about.

He asked me my name. In all the time I had been there nobody had ever bothered. And yet there he was: a somebody, asking a nobody for his name. He spoke to me like I was his friend, though we'd only just met. He did that with everyone, but for me it was different because nobody had ever spoken to me like that.

I never knew what to say to him. I never knew what to say to anyone. There were always words in my mind but something always told me they were insignificant or they would be laughed at; they were the wrong words. It didn't matter, though, because he could talk enough for the both of us. Sometimes I would find a smile on my face or hear the foreign sound of my own laughter. I wasn't sure how he managed that but he did. I wondered if this was what I had been missing out on for so many years, or if he was just special.

I often wondered where all that energy and enthusiasm came from. Life was bleak. He knew that as well as I did, but it was just in his nature to ignore the darkness and drag people through it with him, never finding a way out but never letting it deter him. He stood back and watched as all his ideals collapsed in a heap at his feet, and he watched it with optimism, no delusion, only an unwavering belief that things would get better. He believed in the good of people, a mythical entity I couldn't seem to see. It made me feel older than him, and wiser perhaps. I felt like I knew more of the world and its harsh realities, and he was just a perpetually joyful child. Really, though, we'd both seen the same things, lived through the same things. If anything, he knew more than I did. The only difference was that I let what I'd seen kill the small part of him that I was sure I had once possessed. I saw the world for what it was and I let it push me into false indifference, a front I put up to hide from the things I couldn't accept. He saw the world for what it was and he never stopped dreaming.

I was barely conscious but I could feel him pick me up and run. He had always spoken to me like a friend, but I had always doubted it, just like I doubted everything. Why would he want to be my friend? What did he see in me? There was nothing to see. It was just a part of him to be friendly with people, to smile at them and make them feel welcome, to let them in. And yet he could have left me behind. He could have saved himself. Instead he chose to take me with him, placing me down safely, fighting his battles, and then coming back for me. Each and every time he came back for me, not with a sense of purpose or duty, but rather with one of nonchalance. He came back and slung me over his shoulder without even looking at me, always focussed on some other task. I was just thrown absent-mindedly over his shoulder without contemplation, time after time, until I could finally stop doubting: he was my friend. I wondered if I'd ever wake up enough to be able to thank him for that.

As I sat in the back of a truck, incapable of anything but the occasional thought, he sat with me and talked to me and smiled at me. How could he still be smiling after all that had happened? I admired him for that. He was my best friend. He was my only friend.

He chatted away, ignoring the fact that I didn't respond, knowing that I was listening and satisfied with that; it was just like old times.

"We're friends, right?"

'Yes!' my mind screamed. I couldn't move, though. I could only sit there and will him to realise that he was the last person left who mattered to me, that he was the only reason I hadn't given up, that he had let me experience something that I would probably be too scared to ever let myself experience again.

He set me down safely for the last time. He wouldn't be coming back for me this time, but I finally knew that it wasn't because he didn't care or because I wasn't important enough or because I deserved to be left behind. He didn't come back because he couldn't, because he cared too much.

He chuckled quietly at me, amused until the very end. As I sat there uselessly he ruffled my hair. I had always hated it when he did that. It always made me blush slightly and shove him gently away from me. It was annoying and it made me feel like a child. This time, though, I wanted to throw my arms around him, but all I could manage was to reach my hand out towards him as he turned his back on me and walked away. As my vision faded the last thing I saw was the contented smile on his face.

It was the gunshots that woke me up. My vision was still blurry as I leant against the rock where I vaguely remembered being safely placed. I heard people walking towards me, mumbling incoherently before leaving. They were gone; I was safe. My mind drowned in joy for a moment before I began to question how I had ended up here in the first place. Blurry images replayed themselves in my mind and I forced myself to look up. There he was.

In perhaps the most pathetic moment in my entire pathetic existence, I began to drag myself along the ground towards him. The rain stung my skin, harshly reminding me that my senses had finally returned.

As I looked over him it seemed stupid to think, 'It should have been me,' but I did it anyway.

I was watching a man die. No, I was watching an innocent man die. No, I was watching my friend die.

He pulled my head to his chest, mumbling important words, somehow finding the strength not only to speak but to smile. Even in his most desperate moment he was still there, letting me know that everything was all right.

As I raised my head I felt the sword fall into my hands, dragging me down with a weight that wasn't quite physical. I repeated his words so he knew that I understood; it was my turn to let him know that everything was all right.

I was there to whisper my goodbyes. I was there to watch him gently close his eyes. I was there to see the small smile on his face, the smile I swore I would never forget. There was nobody but the two of us. I could have screamed and nobody would have heard me. So I did.

The rain fell heavily around us, enough to mask my tears; it wasn't enough to wash his blood from my face.

He was gone.

Nobody else would ever know. He would be scratched from ShinRa's records. Maybe they would bother to send his mother a letter; maybe they wouldn't. Most likely the only evidence that he had ever lived would be the sword now weighing heavily in my hands. I was the living proof of his existence. I was the last one who knew what had happened. I was the last one who would remember his smiles and his laughter, his rare serious expressions which always managed to erupt into childish smiles. I was the last one who would remember his leadership, his acceptance of everybody into his strange little world, his endless encouragement. I was the last one who would remember what his only dream had ever been: to be a hero. And now that he'd finally achieved his dream, I was the only one there to see it. I was the only one who could ever remember it. He was _my_ hero.

As I whispered, "Goodnight," I walked away, dragging the last piece of him along beside me.

And the first thing I did was forget him.


End file.
